Ola censures VHP member who cancelled ride by Muslim driver

Responding to a tweet by a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) member over a ride he cancelled because the driver was a Muslim, Ola unambiguously stated that it does not "discriminate (its) driver partners or customers basis their caste, religion, gender or creed." The company, however, has dismissed calls to ban the user from its platform, simply urging its customers to be respectful of each other.

Also, even as demands to take down the now-infamous tweet by the 25-year-old intensifies, Twitter also has refused to take any action since it could not "identify any violations of the Twitter rules".

According to the micro-blogging site, it had investigated the reported content and could not identify any violations of the Twitter rules.

Abhishek Mishra, who describes himself as a "Hindutva Thinker" and is incidentally VHP's social media adviser, kicked up a storm when he congratulated himself on Twitter for cancelling an Ola ride because the driver was a Muslim and since he "did not want to give (his) money to jihadis."

Posted on April 20, the tweet sparked a social media storm over the weekend with demands to suspend his account from both Twitter and Ola. At the time of publishing this story, the tweet was endorsed by over 1100 users and liked by over 2000.

Mishra also claimed that he has been receiving notifications from Twitter that people have been unsuccessfully attempting to reset his password since his post caught media attention.

"I am just raising my voice for Hindu Drivers, those are discriminated on the basis of religion by Customers. Bas style different hai," he brazenly states through another tweet which has also been liked by over 1300 users. "People starts attack on me. Can I have no right to choose ? If they can run a campaign against Hanuman ji poster on cab, defamed Hindus and Hindus god in Kathua incident then they must be prepared for reply," he further writes.

Mishra’s tweet was condemned by a host of Twitter users, including Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. "I remember an India where people who thought this way would have been ostracized rather than admired & ”followed”. We need to #BringIndiannessBack,” he had tweeted.

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